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Castro Joining Nationwide Effort to Reform Education

San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is joining mayors of several other American cities which has approved innovative approaches to education, to try to push for education reform nationwide, 1200 WOAI news reports.

"Mayors across the United States are doing innovative things," Castro told 1200 WOAI's Michael Board. "Working with school districts, boosting student achievement, challenging the community."

The Pre-K for SA program, which was pushed through by Castro last year and which opened its first two learning centers in August, is one of the programs which is cited as being at the forefront of education reform. In fact, President Obama has cited universal pre-school as one of the priorities of his second term.

"This represents a huge commitment by San Antonians to make an investment in our four year olds," Castro said.

Efforts have been made at the national level to reform education, especially for poor, inner city, and minority students, but many have been expensive failures. Castro says the local level, not Washington, is the place where improvements in public schools need to begin.

"The events of the last week in Washington DC that a lot of the solutions are happening at the local level," he said, citing the government shutdown, the stare-down over the debt ceiling, and the general pettiness and dysfunction of the federal government.

The mayors of Denver, Sacramento, and Providence are joining Castro in the effort.